O'er His Hall
by audreyii-fic
Summary: The King of Asgard yields to no one but his Queen. (Sequel to Cast A Shadow. Lokane.)


_**A/N**: Robert Frost and Macbeth and the Game of Thrones soundtrack tangle up to fuel a Lokane wankst!fest. I regret nothing._

_Sorta-sequel to the previous Lokane fic "Cast A Shadow". Written for as a Big Round Number thank you to tumblr followers. Better late than never!_

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** _O'er His Hall_**

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_ "and who are you," the proud lord said, "that i must bow so low?"_

* * *

"Knock it off." Jane Foster shrugs Loki's mouth from her shoulder without turning to face him. The device of measurement in her hand never wavers, and her tone is not playful - no, it is businesslike, with more than a touch of genuine annoyance. "If you're bored, go back to the throne room and find someone else to pester. I'm busy."

Would any other to speak to Loki in such a way, he would have their tongues from their mouths before there was a moment to plead for mercy. Even Odin would not have objected to that. Deference is the right and due of every King.

Except, of course, from his Queen.

Loki steps back, but it is not a retreat; he sidles around to the front of the table, so as to better enjoy the rapt concentration on his prize's face as she examines the latest artifact in her grasp: the Casket of Ancient Winters, which now rests on a wide marble table, surrounded by all the Midgardian tools of science that Jane refused to leave the realm without. He has waited long to give her this gift - the chance to examine one of the most powerful relics in all of Asgard - and thus far it has proven worth his patience.

She is never more fascinating than when she works.

Behind the locked doors of the vault is the only time they are themselves for true. The mirage Loki has created for his subjects is very lovely - statuesque, dignified, perhaps a bit solemn but in a suitable way (and if the halls whisper that there is a vague resemblance between Odin's first wife and the second they soon regret the mistake) - but it is not Jane Foster. Jane Foster is short, ale-brown of eye and hair, and terribly conventional, even for a mortal. Jane Foster's passions burn so bright that Loki can't stop himself from trying to touch, to see if the flames will melt the frost from beneath his skin.

_This_ is the woman who metamorphosed his brother in two short days; the woman who struck him before they were even properly introduced; the woman who carries the power to destroy worlds in her blood.

Yes, he would look on her face all the time, rather than just stolen hours locked away from a palace that believes itself ruled by another.

Perhaps one day.

The tool slips; Jane's fingers nearly brush the ice-blue side of the casket, the inside of which churns with restless potency. Loki pictures that cream flesh turning black, and tamps down on the urge to snatch her arm and yank her away. He settles for a soft murmur of, "Do be cautious."

"I _am_ cautious," she snaps. "You're distracting me."

"I would never."

"These tests are _very delicate_, Loki."

"As you have stated diligently and at great length."

"Then why do you keep trying to interrupt?"

"I have a need of you." Jane rolls her eyes, and he adds (with a smirk), "_Beyond_ that."

"Uh-huh. Just tell me, so I can get back to work."

"Jotunheim."

At last he has her undivided attention. She sets down her instrument and says, words wary, "So soon?"

Loki circles back to her side; Jane's eyes follow him, and he detects the smallest, most delicious shiver in her frame as he approaches. Of the variety of enticing things she does, trembling is one of his favorites. "Rumors of your _skills_ spread wide, my dear. It will be best to act before those rumors solidify into certainty and particular parties think to... interfere."

She sees the logic in his words, he knows she does, but still she offers, haltingly, hesitatingly, "There are _people_ on Jotunheim."

"Only if one uses so loose a definition of the term as to deprive it of all meaning."

"They're still _alive_."

"Bilgesnipe are alive. They are hunted without qualm or regret."

"It's not the same."

"No?"

Jane frowns. The bow of her mouth draws his gaze without her intention. The lips of the illusion she daily wears are redder, but thinner; more Aesir, less human. Less enthralling. Less, less, less.

If he could see her whenever he wished he would not be so affected in these moments. Or so he tells himself.

Aloud he taunts: "Have you grown weary of your research already?"

Anger clouds her features as he knew it would. "I learned everything I needed about _this_ from Svartalfheim," she spits, bristling, delicate poisoned spikes. "Give me something new to study."

Yes, _there_ she is.

Loki steps close, brushes a thumb across that mouth. "Name your desire, my lady." Words of honey and apple and pomegranate seed.

Jane just looks at him.

His smile falters. "No."

"You know what I want," she says.

"No."

"The data it could generate-"

"No."

"You need me to destroy an entire _planet!_ All I'm asking is-"

He ducks low to capture her lips with his own. Rough, rapacious, breath and tongue and teeth. Jane whimpers, yields to his purposeful mouth, and he dares to believe for a short, shining moment that he has succeeded in, as the Midgardians say, _changing the subject_.

But aether is not so easily swayed.

Loki is jerked forward by his wrist, finds himself pressed against his queen's body, feels his palm slapped down onto something hard and cold and so unfairly familiar. He halts the kiss and tries to wrench away, but her grip does not yield.

She holds him firm while the Casket of Ancient Winters peels away that which has cloaked him since infancy.

Jane's eyes flash dark as the abyss as she watches the change; her peach skin crawls with crimson wherever it touches his own. She shows no signs of damage from the contact. Her curse protects her as his curse condemns him.

The aether makes her too strong. He cannot break the hold.

He _cannot_.

The realization slips grotesquely over everything Loki is, everything he has ever been, coating him with ice and fire, matter and anti-matter, sliding through every crack and chink until he thinks he would tear his own arm off to free himself of her.

But her kisses are light and teasing, and that ageless energy that quivers in her veins soon drugs his instinct to flee. Magic would be wasted fighting when it can banish their garments to another realm instead. And if he only has a single hand with which to touch her, well, he will put it to good use.

"You're freezing," the Queen of Asgard moans as he lifts her onto the table with one arm and steps between her parted thighs. Through the melting heat of her flesh he feels infinity pulsing in time with her pounding heart. Everything is too warm. "I like it."

That stings. Loki shoves deep into her searing quim and snarls: "You can be such a stupid creature."

Her hold on his wrist tightens until the bones grind together. That stings too, but in a far better way.

As he fucks her he thinks of how Svartalfheim dissolved before her might, fading to soot and ash. In his mind's eye the dust turns to ice that shatters instead of scatters, sparkling shards that spiral through space. A cacophony of howls that ends almost before it begins. A race of monsters gone, wiped clean, as though they never even existed.

He pulls her flush and moves faster, harder. One of Jane's precious tools rolls off the table to shatter on the stone floor.

Aether smells like salt and storms.

"Do this for me," he says.

She presses his palm still more firmly against the casket in response. He buries his face against her throat before he sees his own skin. "You know what I want," she gasps, arching into him, crackling with power. "What do _you_ want?"

For a moment Loki remembers a little bedroom in a little flat on a little planet, ale-brown hair spilled across a feather pillow and awkward words of love-

But here there is fire and ice and worlds to consume in both, and shortly thereafter the goddess with her legs wrapped around his waist cries out her release and Loki follows with a grunt and a groan and something fractured.

In time Jane loosens the iron grip on his wrist; she traces the welts of frost as they fade from his flesh. Her eyes are still black. Perhaps his are still red. "Jotunheim," she says, voice as idle as her fingers.

"Yes." A beat. "For the tesseract."

"Not to _keep_, Loki. Just to analyze. For science."

_It is not science. It is one infinity stone calling to another and then another and another until they crush everything in their path, and he will hear. There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find us. We will burn, Jane Foster._

But if he does not see Jotunheim shattered knows not what he will do, or where he will go, or what he could seek next. Satisfaction is not in his nature.

"So be it," says Loki.

And Jane's full, mortal lips curl into a smile. "Well then," she says, "when do we start?"


End file.
